Wednesday, January 3, 2018

So It Begins

30+ hours, 3,657 miles flying, 100+ miles of buses, and 17 miles of walking since I woke up on the 2nd of January and prepared to fly to Dublin, I am now preparing to sleep. For those who do not know, myself and two of my friends, Ethan and Nick, decided to take a few days to visit Ireland before beginning our semester of study in Rome. On our first day, we arrived in Dublin a little before 5 in the morning Dublin time. At a little after 6, we exited the airport and started walking. Our first place to visit was the Round Tower in Swords, a little town outside of Dublin. The Round Tower was a part of an old Irish monastery built by St. Columba in the 6th century. One interesting aspect of it is that the original door is built much higher than any person could reach without stairs or a ladder. This enabled people to retreat to the tower and then cut off access to it in case of an attack. Unfortunately it was still very dark when we arrived at the tower, but it was still a marvel to look at when I considered the technology that the monks would have had to build the tower.

After visiting the Round Tower, we walked to Malahide, a town a few miles away from Swords, where there is a castle. The castle was very impressive. It was a new experience for me to be walking through a bunch of trees and having a castle appear around a corner. The chapel next to the castle was interesting as well. There was a restaurant on the grounds of the castle, so we ate breakfast there around 9:30. At this point, we decided to catch a bus back to Dublin. We learned that exact change was required for riding the bus--3.3 euros as we were informed by one of the ladies working at the castle. However, it was quite a search before we were able to get everyone that change; apparently it is not common for a business to have much change in its till. Eventually, we had the money we needed to ride the bus and made it back to Dublin.

Once back in Dublin, we decided to make our way to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the Gospels. It was written and illuminated by Irish monks in the 9th century. It is remarkably beautiful and ridiculously detailed. It was said that the monks would use crystals to magnify the work, and that they used brushes of a single horse hair. All the paints were made using berries, leaves, rocks, etc. It is an incredible feat of patience, dedication, and art. It is definitely worth Googling and taking a look at some of the pages.

Following the Book of Kells, we decided to figure out how to get to the house we were going to stay at (and are currently in) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Getting the tickets was very easy, but finding the bus stop proved difficult. After a lot of walking and asking around, we found the stop and were soon on the bus and leaving Dublin at 3:30 pm. We were all trying to stay awake so that we could adjust to the new time zone, but we all took naps on the bus. We arrived in Belfast a little after five and set to work figuring out what we had to do for buses tomorrow. After that, we ate supper at the Crown Liquor Saloon. I ate an Irish Stew that was very good, and (because I know my father will be curious) I drank a Brewdog, Jackhammer, an IPA made with "spicy, citrusy, and peppery hops," that was also good.

After our supper, we walked about two miles to our lodging and have been relaxing and getting ready to sleep ever since. An early day tomorrow will hopefully have us on our way to see the tomb of St. Patrick in the morning and a High Kings concert in the evening.

Good night and joy be to you all.

(P.S. I left my camera in my stored bag, so I will not have any pictures from Ireland. I will put a link to my friend Nick's blog in my next entry for those who want to see pictures.)

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